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was immediately struck. Not only was Miriam a protégée of Professor Gimbutas, she just happened to be deeply involved in the study of the lore and the literature surrounding Sheela na gigs, Medusa, Baubo, and other directly pertinent themes. From that moment, it was inevitable that we would write this book together.
Our first joint work was a paper for the Sixteenth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, held in 2004. The paper was published in the 2005 Conference Proceedings. Because of the limitations of space, the paper, relatively short to begin with, had to be reduced by half. Since there was much remaining material, we decided to continue our research, beginning with the full version of the conference paper and expanding it into a book manuscript.
We have ourselves translated most of the myths and folktales in this book; Victor has translated the Chinese and Miriam has translated the Indo-European and Near Eastern myths. These are folktales and myths—and sometimes true stories!—of very powerful goddesses, heroines, and even everyday women who demonstrate to us female power at its most inspiring.